Possible betrayal of Raphinha: his father would have swindled him out of a lot of money<\/a><\/p>\n\n BrusselsNew warning from the European Commission to large US tech companies. Brussels announced this Friday that it has opened an investigation against the social networks Instagram and Facebook for their addictive design, which violates EU digital services legislation. If Meta \u2014 the parent company of both applications \u2014 does not put an end to the practices that contribute to addiction as required by the European Commission, the US company faces a multi-billion euro fine, which can reach a maximum of 6% of its annual global turnover.<\/p>\n
\n Specifically, Brussels explains in a statement that it has reached the “preliminary” conclusion that Instagram and Facebook engage in illegal practices within the European Union, such as infinite scrolling of content and videos \u2014 in English, infinte scroll\u2014, automatic video playback, personalized mobile notifications, and generally, highly personalized algorithms and recommendation systems. “Meta does not adequately assess the risks of its addictive design on the physical and mental well-being of users, including minors and vulnerable adults,” states the document issued by the European Commission. For this reason, Brussels demands that Meta put an end to these practices.<\/p>\n
\n The Community executive also denounces that the two US social networks cause the user to enter a kind of “autopilot mode,” contributing to European citizens having more “unhealthy” habits and making “compulsive use” of these applications. Furthermore, the European Commission assures that Meta “ignores” the information it records about the time minors spend on its applications during the night and how the different formats they offer \u2014 known as reels or stories\u2014 can lead them to use Instagram and Facebook “excessively” and “compulsively.”<\/p>\n
\n The European Commission also points out that the “mitigation measures” implemented by Meta have not effectively curbed the risks derived from its addictive design. Thus, Brussels gives the example that the time management tools of Instagram and Facebook, including those activated by default for adolescents, can be easily deactivated and do not lead to a significant reduction and control of service usage. <\/p>\n
\n Furthermore, the European Commission considers that Meta’s parental controls are only effective if parents and guardians have adequate technical knowledge, and they must dedicate time and effort to understanding them correctly, which it considers “diminishes” the effectiveness of these measures to address “the inherent risks” posed by the addictive design of Instagram and Facebook. “Meta’s awareness measures, such as advice and links to mental health resources available through a separate page called the ‘safety center,’ do not seem to sufficiently mitigate the risk of addictive design,” Brussels adds.<\/p>\n
The threat of the fine<\/p>\n
\n Brussels notes that the conclusions of the investigation announced this Friday are not yet definitive, and recalls that Meta now has the possibility to exercise its right to defense and apply the reforms requested by the community authorities. However, should the European Commission confirm the indications and the Silicon Valley technology does not carry out the mentioned measures, Brussels can impose a fine of up to 6% of its annual international turnover.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You might be interested in Possible betrayal of Raphinha: his father would have swindled him out of a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":126896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[104],"tags":[1745,141,211,1384,210,1252,61880,3788,61881,1380,13872,39286,217,4512],"class_list":["post-126895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brussels","tag-addictive","tag-and","tag-belgium","tag-billion","tag-brussels","tag-design","tag-dollar","tag-facebook","tag-fine","tag-for","tag-instagram","tag-threatens","tag-to","tag-with"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116895276656631941","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}